ignificantly, and with a tone of exultation in
his voice, "We've got him, my boys; _now_ let us sing to the praise and
glory of God," etc.

William Wren held the office of church clerk at Stondon Massey in Essex
for thirty-six years, from 1853 to 1889. He was a rough, uneducated man,
but with a certain amount of native talent which raised him above the
level of the majority of his class. I can see him now in his place
Sunday after Sunday, rigged out in a suit of my father's cast-off
clerical garments--a kind of "set-off" to him at the lower end of the
church. In his earlier days Wren had played a flute in the village
instrumental choir, and to the last he might be heard whiling away
spare moments on a Sunday in the church (for he brought his dinner early
in the morning and bivouacked there all day!) recalling to himself the
departed glories of ancient time. He turned the handle of the barrel
organ in the west gallery from the time of its purchase in 1850 to that
of its disappearance in 1873, but I do not think that he ever
appreciated this rude substitution of mechanical art for cornet,
dulcimer, and pipe.

He led the hymns and read the Psalms, and repeated the responses with
much fervour; perpetuating (long after it had ceased to be correct) the
idea that he alone could be relied upon. Should the preacher
inadvertently close his discourse with the sacred name either as part of
a text or otherwise, a fervent "Amun" was certain to resound through the
building, either because long custom had led him to regard the appendage
as indispensable to it, or because like an old soldier suddenly roused
to "attention," he awoke from a stolen slumber to jerk himself into the
mental attitude most familiar to him. This last supposition, however, is
a libel upon his fair character. I cannot believe that Wren ever slept
on duty. He kept near to him a long hazel stick, wherewith to overawe
any of the younger members of the congregation who were inclined either
to speak or titter. On Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent, when the school
attended morning service, and, in the absence of older people, occupied
the principal seats instead of their Sunday places in the gallery,
Wren's rod was frequently called into active play, and I have heard the
stick resound on the luckless head of many an offending culprit.

Let me give one closing story of him on one of those weekday mornings.

It was St. John the Evangelist's Day, and a few of us met at chu